Friday, January 8, 2016

Memphis Lift, Sift, and Grift

Ever since Bush's corrupt bag man at ED, Rod Paige, paid out millions in federal grants to the Black Alliance for Education Options to promote vouchers, both governments and corporations have leaned on black astroturf groups to push the corporate reform school catalog of bad ideas. One such group of black mercenaries is the corporate-funded Memphis Lift, which uses white charter empire cash to pay locals in Memphis to go door to door among residents of the poorest communities to recruit for the corporate charters, which are lined up for their piece of the ASD action as public schools are shut down. Since early 2015, Memphis Lift has been been lubricated with stipends funneled by John Little through his Strategies Redefined, LLC, which was formed in December 2014. Little receives cash to disperse to his bad news crews in Memphis from the Tennessee Charter School Association, which is kept flush with tax-sheltered dollars from the nation's richest venture philanthropists.A few weeks back the Shelby County Schools decided to stop sharing student demographic data with ASD, which had been sharing Memphis student addresses and phone numbers with Memphis Lift. At first the ASD appeared ready to accept this decision, since the information could be obtained through the TN Dept. of Education. In the past few days, however, it has become clear that the ASD will now use Governor Haslam's muscle to try to force Shelby County to give up the information so that Memphis Lift can continue the anti-public school campaign in Memphis.